


The Rose and the Thorns

by nothingislittle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depressed John, Depression, Diary/Journal, Epistolary, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, John-centric, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV John Watson, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingislittle/pseuds/nothingislittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes is dead and John Watson feels the same. After returning to his therapist, she suggests John write the things he meant to say but never did in a journal, like letters to Sherlock. John thinks the idea is ridiculous — but he's still writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rose and the Thorns

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to Katie, my love, for providing a cushy barrier between my writing and the rest of the world. 
> 
> This will be multi-chapter, alternating between John and Sherlock letters. I plan to update every three weeks on Tuesdays, if not more frequently. I'll update the tags and summary to match as I go along. If angst and pain are not your thing, warning, click away. There will be very little, if any, happy moments in this story.

 

 

_And every time I've held a rose, it's seems I only felt the thorns_  
_And so it goes, and so it goes, and so will you soon I suppose_  
_But if my silence made you leave, then that would be my worst mistake.  
-Billy Joel, And So It Goes_

 

16 June 2011

This is ridiculous. I am a grown man and I’m writing in a bloody electronic diary. Ella said I should start the blog back up, but I can’t do that. I might post now and again, but I’m not going to fill it up with nonsense and tears and me mourning through the keyboard. She tells me there are things I haven’t said. “Say them now, John, tell them to me, let it out” blah blah blah. I won’t. I can’t and I won’t and she’s not going to hear those things. Then she … the she told me I should try writing them down, like writing letters to Sherlock. Fucking ridiculous, that. Keep a diary and fill it up with every pathetic thing I was too much of a coward to tell you. Him. To tell him.

Jesus, this is fucking ridiculous.  

-JHW

 

17 June 2011

Dear

No. No ‘dear Sherlock’ because this is stupid. I’m not doing it.

-JHW

 

21 June 2011

I don’t know what to do without you.

-JHW

 

22 June 2011

Your funeral was today.

I went to Sherlock Holmes’ funeral.

I’m an idiot. I never once imagined you dying, even through all the stupid, dangerous messes we got ourselves in, I never thought of it even once. I thought about dying myself plenty, dreamt it often enough, the wind and the desert, the blood and the pain. That bullet hitting me just far enough over to go straight through my heart.

I haven’t had one dream about Afghanistan since you’ve been gone. No combat, no gunfire. Nothing. Now I dream I’m falling. I’m falling from Bart’s roof and you’re falling in front of me and there’s no ground, we just fall and fall and fall forever and I never catch up to you. I never reach you, no matter how far I stretch out my arms. Then suddenly the sidewalk is coming up to meet us and I wake up when I hear the sick thud of your body hitting it.

Or maybe I wake up because I’m screaming.

I don’t know.

-JHW

 

2 July 2011

I tried to go back to the flat today. When the cab pulled up I told it to go round the block again. We circled for an hour and I had to have him take me to the bank to withdraw enough money to pay the fare. You always did make me pay the fare, didn’t you? Bloody imperious sod. It’s not as if you didn’t have hundreds of pounds in your pockets. God knows where it all came from. Mycroft probably.

I wonder how Mycroft is.

Probably fine. Neither of you knew how to feel things normally. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran off to tea with the queen the same day he heard the news.

That’s not fair. He looked miserable at the funeral. I couldn’t talk to him. Haven’t since that day at The Diogenes Club when he apologised to me. I wonder if he blames himself. Probably not — that’s definitely fair to say.

Imagine the look on your face if you saw Mycroft at your own funeral. I’m sure you would laugh. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if this was all a trick and you were stood behind a tree, sniggering at Mycroft’s moony face. I can see it now. Of course is this was one of your tricks I’m sure I’d be in on it. Trying to keep a straight face while Mycroft reached for a hanky.

What am I writing? This is ridiculous. This isn’t a trick. Sherlock Holmes is dead. Writing to him like he’s not isn’t going to help anything. This is a joke.

-JHW

 

5 July 2011

Went to see Ella again today, though I don’t see the point. She keeps telling me to get a job. That’s rich. A job when I can barely make it out of my flat just to see her.

You should see where I’m staying, Sherlock. It’s like a bloody hospital room. Worse than the army flat. Sterile. Stamford rented it for me. Temporary furnished housing. Normally for corporate types, I guess. In town for a couple months on business. I keep leaving stacks of things every where, trying to clutter the place up so it feels normal but there’s a housekeeper comes twice a week and tidys and dusts. A bloody nightmare. I yelled at her the last time she came in. I may have had a bit of drink that night.

I should just let her clean. What’s the point in trying to make it look like you live here too. You’re gone.

“Just keep writing, John.” “It’ll help, John.” “Remember how the blog helped, John.”

Okay, Ella, sure. Every time I write in this stupid thing I have to drink half a bottle of scotch either to get stupid enough to do it or to deal with the nonsense I wrote afterward. Really helpful.

-JHW

 

9 July 2011

I’m supposed to be writing the things I didn’t sy to you, eh Sherlock? Is that the point? Well here’s one: you’re beautiful. Were beautiful. With your cheek bones. Like I said in Baserville. Remember? I was furious with you you weree so lboody forgeous. I’m having trouble typin. Ineed another dirnk.

-JWH

 

10 July 2011

Drank too much last night. Again.

I’m not telling Ella.

-JHW

 

15 July 2011

It’s been a month. You’ve been dead for 30 days. It feels like years. It feels like you died today. I can’t do this. I can’t do this, Sherlock. Why did you do this?

-JHW

 

22 July 2011

I’ve been drinking a lot. Too much. Harry rang me and she could tell. But I don’t care. What else am I supposed to do.

My paid time in the rented flat is almost out. I have a bit saved, from all those cases that paid us big. Remember that, Sherlock? That was a great feeling. Like I was actually helping you. Like I deserved to be there. Like I was a detective too. Why did you even bring me along? I still don’t understand. It felt like we were … for awhile it felt like. I don’t know. We were so in sync. I didn’t bother seeing anyone because what was the point. We just _fit_ , didn’t we, Sherlock? I thought … maybe I should have said something. But no, you had “alone” didn’t you.

Why didn’t you tell me you were meeting him on that roof, Sherlock, why? I could have stayed behind. Watched from across the way, like I did with the cabbie. You could still be here if you had just bloody trusted me. I don’t understand. I guess you never cared for me like I did you. I spent too long hoping. What a waste.

Maybe I was right when I called you a machine. Maybe I was.

-JHW

 

29 July 2011

They’re talking about you on the news again. Still calling you a “fake genius.” There’s no way and I’ll never believe it. Never. You didn’t lie to me, you couldn’t have. They had better clear your name. I know Greg is working on it. I’m supposed to meet him at the pub later. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure everyone knows you were for real.

-JHW

 

5 August 2011

I got another job at a nearby surgery. And a six month lease at a nice studio flat. Still too clean, but I’ll see what I can do about it.

I’m making myself go through the motions because what else is there? If I don’t, I’ll die. Which I’ve considered. But after watching you … no. Never.

I wake up, have a shower, head to work, see patients, go home by way of the pub. I should eat more, probably. Sometimes I have chips with my pint, sometimes Greg meets me. Sometimes I order too many whiskeys and take a cab home. Then I write in this stupid thing whenever I can stand it. I go to Ella once a week and she always wants to know if I’ve written anything. It’s easier to just do it so I can tell her yes. Not worth the fight. And I don’t know. Maybe it’s good. I bloody hate it but at least I feel something writing here. The rest is just … blank.

-JHW

 

16 August 2011

I drank so much last night I blacked out. Two months since you’ve been gone and everyone tells me how amazed they are at my “progress,” how “great” I’m doing. I suppose I must be a good actor then.

God I miss you. I think about that all the time. Every second, every minute. What would we be doing now, if you were here? What? Would we have a case on? Would I be staying up late, searching through files, running through the streets, instead of drinking and staring out the window? Or would we be between cases? Would you be bored and I would have to entertain you to keep you from tearing down the building? I’d like that. No. I would love that. I would go back there in an instant, Sherlock, if I could. I can’t think of anything I’d give up to have you alive and here, even in a strop. Anything.

-JHW

 

18 August 2011

I want to hear your voice again.

-JHW

 

21 August 2011

I love you.

Yeah.

Er. I loved you? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I still do.

I should have told you.

-JHW

 

22 August 2011

Well I finally bloody got it out, didn’t I? I’m sure Ella would shit a brick if I let her read this. She always looks at me when I talk about you. I’m sure she’s known all along. Who didn’t, really?

You.

You didn’t. Not that it would have mattered, right? I have no idea what you would have said. “Still not my area, John.” Probably. But what if you hadn’t? What if I’d had the bollocks to say it and you’d … maybe you felt something. Sometimes it seemed like you did. We were friends at the very least, right? Do sociopaths have friends? Were you even a sociopath? I think about that a lot, Sherlock, because really, not only is that diagnosis not medically accepted in this day and age, but … look at what you did for Mrs. Hudson. When that CIA agent hurt her.

I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention in the psych classes I had to be perfectly honest.

I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted to know. It probably would have ruined everything. Probably.

But what if it hadn’t.

Where would we be now if I had said something?

-JHW

 

24 August 2011

I drank for three days straight instead of going to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fired me.

I don’t care.

-JHW

 

29 August 2011

Well I guess I still have a job. I honestly don’t know how I talked myself out of that mess. I was too drunk to remember the meeting I had with the clinic supervisor. I guess I’m a good sober drunk. I certainly had enough examples in my life — Harry, mom, my uncles. Bloody drunk at every family event since before I can remember.

Did I ever tell you about my parents, Sherlock? I don’t think I did. And now I’ll never have the chance. No point to write it here. It’s not like you could come back from the dead and read it.

-JHW

 

30 August 2011

Here’s the thing. I’m sitting here and I want you. And you’re not here. You’ll never be here again. But I’m still sitting here thinking about what it would be like for you to be over there, at the other end of the couch, and I look up and you look up and we both smile. I’m still thinking about that.

I’ll never stop thinking about that.

-JHW

**Author's Note:**

> This song inspired much of this story and takes it's title from the lyrics:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUCYtyaLrY
> 
> I lurk over at teapotsubtext.tumblr.com if you're interested in stalking me a bit. I like it.


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